Sunday, September 30, 2012

Most likely the worst two candidates ever running for election; the only sane choice is to vote independent, for the postman or the dogcatcher; both Obama and "Mittens" Romney have already declared they will attempt to start WWIII following "elections"

According to most public opinion polls, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is slowly increasing his advantage over Republican challenger Romney, both in the national popular vote as well as in the contests for the swing states which will provide the key to the Electoral College and to final victory on November 6. According to many of these polls, Obama is gaining because he is seen by the American public as more likely to maintain what remains of the US social safety net, as compared to the reactionary Republicans Mitt Romney and his running mate Paul Ryan, who have both made clear that social programs will be subjected to deep austerity cuts.

Obama dreaming up new social program cuts

Every day, the Obama campaign fills the airwaves with television ads portraying Romney as a heartless plutocrat who has no interest in or comprehension of the daily struggles of working people. The implication is often that Romney cannot be relied on to preserve Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid, food stamps, and other government programs which poor and unemployed people need to survive. In particular, Obamas advertising targets the so-called Ryan Plan for the federal budget, which would remove the federal guarantee (or entitlement) of medical care for senior citizens, and replace it with a voucher good for a sum of money which would usually not be enough to pay for the medical procedures older people require. They would have to pay the difference themselves, and many simply cannot.

By contrast, Obama tries to appear as responsible and caring, with genuine concern about the plight of the little people. Obama, whom his own supporters have often seen as cold and detached himself, has received help in improving his image from former President Bill Clinton, who ran on the slogan of “I feel your pain,” thus highlighting his supposed empathy with the daily problems of the downtrodden.

Spastic, nearly illiterate Romney stands little chance

If these tendencies continue unchanged, it is becoming more likely that Obama will win the election.

But if Obama does win, the American people will be in for a shock of epic proportions. The evidence is now accumulating that Obama fully intends to betray his own loyal supporters - well-meaning everyday people who are even now making contributions, stuffing envelopes, ringing doorbells, and putting up posters to get out the vote on November 6 -- by selling out working people to reach a corrupt deal with the same reactionary Republicans Obama is currently pretending to oppose. It would be a deal to savagely cut Social Security, Medicare, and other vital services in the vain quest for a balanced budget and a reduction in the US public debt. Above and beyond the devastating economic effects of such a pact, it would be likely to bring on a collapse of public confidence in government so severe as to represent a true constitutional crisis.

If he wins, Obama will once more support nutcase Netanyahu in attacking
Iran while at the same time provoking both Russia and China over his
support and blatant arming of the Syrian CIA trained "rebels" along with his overt attempt
to re-colonize the Pacific region

The most recent indication that Obama intends to express his gratitude to his own followers by stabbing them in the back came in a September 24 Huffington Post article by Sam Stein entitled “Obama May Do Social Security Reform during the Lame-Duck Session, Senate Democrats Worry.” Stein quotes a warning issued by Democratic Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont that Obama is signaling to Republicans that he is willing to attack the benefit structure of Social Security pensions by making retirees wait until they are several years older to get full benefits, and by tampering with the mechanism based on changes in the Consumer Price Index which governs cost-of-living increases in the monthly Social Security checks which 56 million older Americans live on. Changing the cost-of-living allowance would have the effect of sharply reducing Social Security benefits over time. According to Sanders, “Everything being equal, unless we stop it, what will happen is there will be a ‘grand bargain’ after the election in which the White House and some Democrats will sit down with Republicans, they will move to a chained CPI." The “chained CPI” is technical jargon for a dishonest way of calculating inflation which makes price increases seen to be less than they are in reality, and thus chisels away at Social Security payments.

Already eating dog food on the streets of the richest country in the world, Obama's further social program cuts would sound the death-knell for U.S. Seniors

During Obama’s negotiations with the reactionary Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner in the summer of 2011, the tenant of the White House responded to Republican blackmail and extortion centering on a US default on public debt payments by appeasing the GOP with the offer of instituting such a “chained CPI.” But this deal fell apart because of the truculence of the Tea Party Republican faction, also known as “the reactionary beast.”

Obama’s entire method of governing depends on duplicity, deception, and dissembling. At the same time, he is not entirely secretive about his preference for brutal cuts, and does signal from time to time more or less what he intends to do. But many Americans, stupefied by spectator sports and “reality” television, are too estranged from reality to understand what is happening.

During the week before his inauguration in January 2009, Obama met with the editorial board of the Washington Post and clearly announced his intention to “fix” Social Security and Medicare, using savage cuts in both cases -- an issue which he had never raised in his campaign. In Obama’s acceptance speech to the Democratic national convention in early September, he stressed that he was “eager” to reach a “grand bargain” with the Republicans, most likely during the so-called lame duck session of Congress in December, when many lawmakers will either be defeated or on their way to retirement, making it easier for them to support drastic austerity measures for which voters would seek to punish them if they got the chance.

On MSNBC Television this past Monday morning, Obama’s campaign boss David Axelrod (widely reputed to be the great-great-grandson of Bolshevik leader Leon Trotsky) did everything possible to hide Obama’s real intentions in regard to austerity against social programs. Axelrod offered no details, but kept repeating that “the approach has to be a balanced one.” This is ironic, since Obama and Axelrod are constantly attacking Romney because he refuses to specify how he intends to change the tax code. But Obama is being just as secretive about plans to shred the social safety net - a matter of life or death for those who depend on it. For Democrats, “balanced” in this context usually means life-threatening reductions in social services which are bartered for tiny modifications in the privileges of super-rich parasites.

When asked for the details of Obama’s intentions by Mark Halperin of Time magazine, Axelrod refused to respond, saying instead: “Mark, I’ll tell you what: when you get elected to the United States Senate and sit at the table - this is not the time.”

Hag Clinton would screw the poor again

While many gullible Americans seemed to be reassured by the role of Bill Clinton in campaigning for Obama, Clinton’s very presence should be seen instead as a harbinger of coming betrayal. In 1996, Clinton capitulated to reactionary demands to wipe out Aid to Families with Dependent Children, an entitlement built into Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Social Security Act of 1935. Clinton thus ended “welfare as we know it” in order to get reelected, and in doing so set the US on a direct path to the current catastrophe of over 50 million people living in extreme poverty with nothing but food stamps to keep them alive. Clinton balanced the US federal budget for a couple of years, but he did it on the backs the poorest and most defenseless.

And, according to Steven Gillon in his recent book The Pact: Bill Clinton, Newt Gingrich, and the Rivalry that Defined a Generation, Clinton, Hillary, and their friend, the right wing Morgan Stanley executive Erskine Bowles wanted to seal a dirty deal with reactionary House Speaker Newt Gingrich to “fix” Social Security via draconian cuts in Clinton’s second term. In late October 1997, Clinton and Gingrich agreed to gut the pension system in ways strikingly similar to what Obama is preparing today. They wanted to raise the minimum age for benefits and erode the monthly checks by tampering with the cost-of-living formula. Clinton was even willing to accept the Republican demand for private accounts for investment and speculation, with huge sums going into the pockets of Wall Street brokers. But this deal blew up when Gingrich, urged on by Republican extremists, impeached Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky scandal in December 1998.

The danger for after the November election is thus a pact between Wall Street Democrats and reactionary Republicans to shift more of the costs of the current economic depression onto working people. With the forces of killer austerity dominating both major political parties, it is more urgent than ever to create an independent programmatic and organizational alternative to serve as a rallying point for class defense in the coming months. If the American people realize in November that they have been duped for a second time by the master manipulator Obama, many will start looking for a way to organize resistance against additional cuts, while fighting for an economic recovery. The critical time for creating a nationwide united front against austerity is now.

WT/JR

Born in Pittsfield, Massachusetts,
1946, Dr. Webster Griffin Tarpley is a philosopher of history who seeks
to provide the programs and strategies needed to overcome the current
world crisis. As an activist historian he first became widely known for
his book George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography (1992), a
masterpiece of research which is still a must read. AB Princeton 1966,
summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa; Fulbright Scholar at University of
Turin, Italy; MA in humanities from Skidmore College; and Ph.D. in early
modern history from the Catholic University of America with emphasis on
the role of Venice in the origins of the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648).
During 2008, he warned of the dangers of an Obama presidency controlled
by Wall Street with Obama: The Postmodern Coup, The Making of a Manchurian Candidate and Barack H. Obama: The Unauthorized Biography. His interest in economics is reflected in Surviving the Cataclysm: Your Guide Through the Worst Financial Crisis in Human History Against Oligarchy. His books have appeared in Japanese, German, Italian, French, and Spanish.
More articles by Dr. Webster Griffin Tarpley

Any
opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect
those of The 5th Estate.

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included information for research and educational purposes.

"There seems to be some confusion over Netanyahu's percentages. The 90% line on his bomb does not refer to 90%-enriched uranium. It is supposed to show Iran nine-tenths the way along the road to a bomb. He argued that Iran is already at the 70% point, but he is not saying it has produced 70%-enriched uranium. His 70% mark is supposed to represent the technical progress Iran has made towards the capacity to make a bomb by producing nearly seven metric tons of low-enriched (3.5%-enriched) uranium. If further enriched to weapons grade, that would be enough for five warheads.

Nutcase Netanyahu: Too hilarious for words

The second phase on Netanyahu's bomb was supposed to reflect the production of what he called 'medium-enriched' uranium, enriched to 20% purity, ostensibly for a medical reactor. This is highly sensitive, because it is much easier to turn into weapons-grade fuel. Iran has produced about about 190kg of that, which would be enough for one bomb if further enriched, except that it has converted about a third of the stockpile into fuel, which is much harder to enrich further.

Netanyahu argument was that Iran's enrichment of low-enriched and 20-enriched uranium will by next summer bring it 90% along the way along the road to a bomb, in terms of the technical hurdles that have to be jumped.

What he did not say is that all this enriched uranium is under IAEA safeguards. It is being watched and is under seal. So there would be clear warning if Iran tried to tried to "break out" of its IAEA constraints and make weapons-grade uranium. It would have break seals and chuck out the inspectors. It is not a line you can drift over, and it takes a clear political decision to cross, which Iran might never take."

Any
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A U.S. actress who appeared in an anti-Muslim movie trailer that sparked violent protests across the Middle East has filed a federal lawsuit against the filmmaker and YouTube to have the clip taken offline.

A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge last week denied a similar motion filed by Garcia to have "Innocence of Muslims" removed.

Violence sparked by the film broke out Sept. 11 in Egypt and Libya, and an attack that day on the U.S. consulate in Libya killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three others.

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opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect
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More and more Americans are treating themselves with information at hand and from the net; doctors and insurance companies can blame themselves for this trend and it is entirely appropriate: Dr. Bob has taken a ton of criticism from medical "professionals" (to which he responds "tough shit") for 5th Estate's Medical Advisory, however the simple fact of the matter is if decent medical care were available to all the advisory would not exist nor have any reason to

When Dr. Marty Makary was a medical student, staffers at the Boston hospital where he was training had a nickname for one of its most popular surgeons: Dr. Hodad.

"Hodad" is an acronym for "hands of death and destruction": Despite his Ivy League credentials and board certification, the surgeon had an unfortunate tendency to botch operations so badly that patients often suffered life-threatening complications.

But he was also one of the surgeons most requested by patients, including celebrities, thanks to his charming bedside manner and their lack of understanding about what caused their post-op problems.

Makary, 42, aims to end the professional code of silence that allows colleagues like Dr. Hodad to thrive. Now a cancer surgeon at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Makary has just published the book "Unaccountable: What Hospitals Won't Tell You and How Transparency Can Revolutionize Health Care."

It outlines the extent to which doctors and hospitals suppress objective data about how patients fare in their hands and argues for clear, publicly accessible statistics to help people make the best choices when it comes to treatment. Hospitals and physicians, he argues, should collect "outcomes data" on everything from how many knee-replacement patients walk without a limp to how many prostatectomy patients become incontinent.

Medicinal plants like the highly toxic Devil's Club (skinny, leafy-topped plant, foreground) used for centuries by Alaska Natives are now being used and replacing some pharmacological medicines by Americans that are fed up with crooked doctors and outrageous, crippling medical insurance payments and abuses by insurance companies

Without that, "patients are walking in blind" every time they choose a hospital, Makary said in an interview. With rare exception they have no way of knowing whether they will receive appropriate care or be one of the 100,000 patients killed or 9 million harmed every year in the United States because of medical mistakes.

"There is terrible guilt about keeping quiet, but there are strong social forces against speaking up when you think something doesn't look right: It can get you fired," said Makary. (HealthGrades, a Denver company that develops and markets quality and safety ratings of healthcare providers, rates Makary a "recognized doctor" based on his training and record of no disciplinary actions or malpractice claims.) "You realize as a young doctor that you've walked into an industry with a very dark side."

CLEAR AS MUD

In no U.S. state can patients find out what a surgeon's rate of complications is, how many mistakes a hospital makes, how many avoidable deaths it has or almost anything else about a provider's record of care.

Most ratings, from magazines to websites, reflect softer metrics. In the closely watched hospital rankings issued by U.S. News & World report, "reputation," or what specialists think of a hospital, counts 32.5 percent toward overall scores. Patient volume, number of nurses, use of advanced technologies and 30-day mortality rates also count.

The federal government collects and makes public some measures, such as hospitals' rates of complications and mortality after certain procedures, on the Hospital Compare website. About half the states require hospitals to make public what percentage of patients develop infections. While that's better than nothing, says Dr. John Santa of Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Reports, providers have largely succeeded in hiding their records.

"Despite the best efforts, if hospitals don't have to report something they don't," said Santa.

For example, a regular survey by Johns Hopkins asks staffers at 60 hospitals about safety and teamwork. Studies show that hospitals scoring high on the surveys have fewer surgical complications and better patient outcomes. But hospitals participate "under the condition that the results remain top secret," said Makary.

Specialist groups also gather data, including the Society of Thoracic Surgeons, which tracks national heart-surgery outcomes. Only one-third of hospitals have agreed to post their results on the society's website.

Santa believes patients should have far more data on outcomes, such as what fraction of hip-replacement patients develop infections and what fraction of heart-bypass patients survive, not just currently available information on whether providers follow medical guidelines.

The reason? Good practices may not be a reliable proxy for good safety. A hospital's rate of providing antibiotics after surgery, for instance, does not always correlate with patients' infection rate, said Santa.

The Joint Commission, an independent non-profit that certifies and accredits hospitals and other providers, last week released its annual report summarizing how well 3,300 hospitals did on measures of quality and safety.

Patients can see that a particular hospital was a "top performer" in pneumonia care, meeting criteria such as taking blood cultures in the intensive care unit. But unless a hospital was specifically cited for exceptional care, patients have no way of knowing how good or bad relative to others it is.

More outcomes measures - whether that knee replacement patient walks again, or even dies on the operating table - will be made public in coming years, said Nancy Foster, vice president for quality and patient safety policy at the American Hospital Association. Patients typically choose a hospital based on what their doctor or friends recommend, she notes, adding, "I think there is a lot of opportunity to enrich that process with hard data. The measures currently available are not as consumer-friendly as most of us would like."

THE EXCEPTIONS

Makary notes several models of transparency that have shown promise. New York, Oregon and California require hospitals to report death rates from heart bypass surgery, adjusted for how sick patients were and other factors to make the comparisons fair.

Transparency has benefited patients. After New York made its data public in 1989, hospitals scrambled to improve, and death rates from heart surgery fell 41 percent in four years.

Vitals.com, a doctor-reviews site launched in 2008, recently began incorporating outcomes for cancer and orthopedic surgery from a number of large hospitals into its ratings, said chief executive and co-founder Mitch Rothschild.

"Individual facilities recognize that if they don't weed out bad practitioners, they'll get creamed as Medicare starts penalizing hospitals for poor performance, so they collect these metrics and share them with us," he said.

For other outcome data that hospitals chose not to share, Vitals filed a Freedom of Information Act request to access the government's Medicare health program for the elderly.

"After a year and a half, as legal fees mounted, we gave up," Rothschild said. The government maintains the data cannot be made public for reasons of privacy and others.

In the meantime, the pitfalls for patients are many. When Makary looked Dr. Hodad up years later, he was still thriving and had a five-star rating on a popular review website.

Makary regrets keeping quiet during a residency at a university-affiliated community hospital that boasted of its "comprehensive breast cancer center" and "No. 1 ranking."

Both statements were inventions of the hospital's marketing department, which can make all sorts of claims as long as they are vague enough not to fall afoul of truth-in-advertising laws. The assertion that patients "may" or "often" do better at a particular hospital is allowed, for instance, as are subjective terms like "comprehensive."

Based on such claims, a young patient Makary calls "Gretchen" who needed breast-cancer surgery believed she would get superb care.

In reality, the small hospital did only a few dozen such surgeries per year compared with hundreds at major hospitals. It did not have the expertise to do breast-conserving and -reconstruction surgery, nor were its surgeons adept at the latest procedures.

Makary said he was bothered at the time by the hospital's disingenuous claims and worried for Gretchen, though he did not warn her. He did ask if she'd considered other hospitals, but even that placed him "on thin ice with my own job."

The operation was horribly botched, leaving Gretchen deformed. Not knowing any other outcome was possible, Makary said, she considered herself "very blessed" just for being alive.

Editing by Michele Gershberg and Prudence Crowther.

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Top Democrats are defending Ambassador Susan Rice after a top House Republican called for her resignation because of questionable statements she made about the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

Tough guy Susan "Butch" Rice, fake "Ambassador" to UN

Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, has been hammered by Republican critics ever since she went on five interview shows on Sunday, Sept. 16 to say the attack on on the U.S. consulate was a "spontaneous" reaction to the outcry in Egypt over an anti-Muslim video posted on YouTube. Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, went so far as to say Rice should resign for intentionally misleading the American people about what really happened.

"I believe it was such a failure of foreign policy messaging and leadership, such a misstatement of facts as was known at the time," King said in an interview on CNN. "For her to go on all of those shows and, in effect, be our spokesman for the world and be misinforming the American people and our allies and countries around the world - somebody has to pay a price for this."

That prompted a quick response from Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Hag Clinton needs to be castrated, fired, prosecuted

"I'm deeply disturbed by efforts to find the politics instead of finding the facts in this debate," Kerry said in a written statement. "I'm particularly troubled by calls for Ambassador Rice's resignation. She is a remarkable public servant for whom the liberation of the Libyan people has been a personal issue and a public mission. She's an enormously capable person who has represented us at the United Nations with strength and character."

In the days immediately following the attack in Benghazi, several other U.S. officials, including White House press secretary Jay Carney, also suggested it was spontaneous attack. But more recently, U.S. officials, including Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, have said the incident was a pre-planned terrorist attack.

In a statement Friday, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper called it a "deliberate and carefully planned terrorist attack" - although Clapper said U.S. intelligence agencies initially believed the attack was spontaneous and shared that information with the White House.

Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., the second-highest-ranking Democrat in the House, also rallied to Rice's defense on Friday.

Ambassador Stevens murdered by Obama, Clinton CIA bagmen

"Susan Rice is an exemplary public servant who has worked effectively on behalf of the U.S. and allies like Israel at the U.N.," Hoyer said in a written statement. "The loss of five Americans in Libya, including Ambassador Chris Stevens, is a horrible tragedy and we should be focused on bringing the perpetrators to justice, not playing politics. My understanding is that the information Ambassador Rice expressed reflected the intelligence community's most current assessment at that time."

In his statement, Kerry also pointed to an investigation ordered by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton into what happened in Benghazi.

"Everyone who cares about the five fallen Americans in Benghazi would do well to take a deep breath about what happened and allow Secretary Clinton's proactive, independent investigation to proceed," Kerry said. "Our committee in the Senate has unanimously asked that some highly detailed, highly specific questions be answered as part of the current investigation. Congress will have plenty of time to examine those answers, and to discern what happened in Benghazi once the investigation is fully underway and the facts become clear."

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opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect
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are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of
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social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of
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Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on
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interest in receiving the included information for research and educational
purposes.

If the U.S. government and Department of Veterans Affairs are saying at least one Veteran suicide a day you can bet the numbers are at least triple that numberProgressive Avenues
By Luke Hiken and Marti Hiken
09/29/2012

Recent figures indicate that for every soldier killed in Afghanistan and Iraq, 25 veterans commit suicide upon their return to the U.S. That is an astonishing statistic! How can this be?

In 1971, Stanford University conducted a prison experiment to determine what the effects of imprisonment were on a selected group of students. One half of the students were chosen to act as prison guards while the other half were to be criminals convicted of serious crimes. The University had to bring the experiment to an abrupt end when it was discovered that the “prison guards” were becoming sadistic, violent oppressors, and the “criminals” were responding to the conditions of imprisonment in dangerously rebellious ways. The experiment underscored what happens to average, educated people, when they are treated without respect, and without protections. More importantly, it demonstrated the catastrophic effect that unrestrained authority, violence and corruption had on those entrusted with the roles of caretakers and guards.[1]

Ultimately unable to deal with his horrific wounds and utter lack of support from the VA, this Marine (pictured here with the piece of shit that murdered him and thousands of other U.S. military personnel) wound up committing suicide

We are witnessing a similar breakdown of morality and judgment among U.S. troops presently carrying out our imperialist wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and elsewhere throughout the Middle East. “The Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology” recently issued the report that for every soldier who was killed in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Middle East over the last 10 years, 25 more veterans have committed suicide.[2] Whether or not these suicide attempts are a result of PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), mental health breakdowns, or the natural consequences of having good “soldiers” turn into murdering monsters because of the conditions they are placed under (i.e. the Stanford experiment), is debatable. Yet, what is more at issue here is the fact that over a ½ million soldiers and mercenaries (i.e. “civilian contractors”) have returned home to our communities from the Middle East, and the Pentagon opines that approximately 1/3 of them suffer from some form of PTSD.

What these statistics highlight, is the moral depravity resulting from all aspects of our involvement in the Middle East, and the impact our colonial assaults have, not only on the defenseless populations we have chosen to destroy, but also on the perpetrators of those assaults as well. It is impossible for soldiers to participate in unjustified mass murder, and not be scarred by it. One would have thought that our experiences in Vietnam would have provided a clue as to the disastrous results that unjustified wars have on the men and women asked to fight in them. But no, our Pentagon and “misleaders,” have learned nothing from Vietnam, the Russian and French failures in Afghanistan, or our deceitful and shameful attack on Iraq. These “misleaders” are unaffected by the cruelty and viciousness of their overseas forays, while many engaged in these wars will spend their days contemplating killing themselves.

Once again, spouses and families are left to their own devices in attempting to help traumatized servicemen and women

Recent studies conducted by NYU and Stanford have documented the fact that hundreds more civilians have been killed by the U.S. drone attacks than the Pentagon acknowledges.[3] Yet some bull-headed bureaucrat in the Defense Department, named John Brennan, has the audacity to explain to Obama that these studies are inaccurate, and that our “pinpoint” accuracy with drones is only killing terrorists, and any unwarranted deaths are “extremely rare.” Are these pathologically absurd comments by Brennan designed to insulate Obama from his slaughter of hundreds of innocent women and children identified in the studies, or do we assume that Obama is even more of a scoundrel than we imagined, for setting up a clown like Brennan to rubber stamp the illegal use of drones?

A nation that murders civilians indiscriminately, wages wars of aggression against defenseless nations, and lies to its own people about our reasons for destroying governments around the world is not only subjecting its soldiers to resulting suicidal behavior, but destroying the moral integrity of the entire nation as well. At every sporting event where we see jet planes and U.S. flags displayed for purposes of propagandizing the American people to put up with our international war crimes, most of the people watching hang their heads in shame over the decline of what was once a great nation.

The Stanford prison experiment was a microcosm of what is happening to the U.S. worldwide. It demonstrates what happens to citizens who become international killers and to the nation that pays them to do so.
______________________________

Marti Hiken is the director of Progressive Avenues. She is the former Associate Director of the Institute for Public Accuracy and former chair of the National Lawyers Guild Military Law Task Force. She can be contacted at info@progressiveavenues.org, 415-702-9682.

Luke Hiken is an attorney who has engaged in the practice of criminal, military, immigration, and appellate law.
The Progressive Avenues website, www.progressiveavenues.org, is regularly updated in the “What’s Added, What’s New” link on the Home page, at http://www.progressiveavenues.org/Whats_New_Added.html
__________________________________________
FOOTNOTES

(1) The Stanford Prison Experiment - A Simulation Study of the Psychology of Imprisonment Conducted at Stanford University,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment

“The Stanford prison experiment was a study of the psychological effects of becoming a prisoner or prison guard. The experiment was conducted at Stanford University from August 14 to August 20 of 1971 by a team of researchers led by psychology professor Philip Zimbardo. It was funded by the US Office of Naval Research and was of interest to both the US Navy and Marine Corps as an investigation into the causes of conflict between military guards and prisoners.
Twenty-four male students out of 75 were selected to take on randomly assigned roles of prisoners and guards in a mock prison situated in the basement of the Stanford psychology building. The participants adapted to their roles well beyond Zimbardo's expectations, as the guards enforced authoritarian measures and ultimately subjected some of the prisoners to psychological torture. Many of the prisoners passively accepted psychological abuse and, at the request of the guards, readily harassed other prisoners who attempted to prevent it. The experiment even affected Zimbardo himself, who, in his role as the superintendent, permitted the abuse to continue. Two of the prisoners quit the experiment early and the entire experiment was abruptly stopped after only six days. Certain portions of the experiment were filmed and excerpts of footage are publicly available.”

(2) Press TV, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/236543.html
“According to a New York Times article published on April 14, an American soldier dies every day and a half, on average, in Iraq or Afghanistan while veterans kill themselves at a rate of one every 80 minutes.

“The article also said more than 6,500 veteran suicides are logged every year -- more than the total number of soldiers killed in Afghanistan and Iraq combined since those wars began.”

The New York Organ Donor Network pressured hospital staffers to declare patients brain dead so their body parts could be harvested — and even hired “coaches” to train staffers how to be more persuasive, a bombshell lawsuit charged yesterday.

Whistleblower hero Patrick McMahon

The federally funded nonprofit used a “quota” system, and leaned heavily on the next of kin to sign consent forms when patients were not registered as organ donors, the suit charged.

“They’re playing God,” said plaintiff Patrick McMahon, 50, an Air Force combat veteran and nurse practitioner who claims he was fired as a transplant coordinator after just four months for protesting the practice.

In September 2011, a 19-year-old man injured in a car wreck was admitted to Nassau University Medical Center. He was still trying to breathe and showed signs of brain activity, the suit charged.

But doctors declared him brain dead under pressure from donor-network officials, including Director Michael Goldstein, who allegedly said during a conference call: “This kid is dead, you got that?” the suit charged.

The patient’s family consented to have the organs harvested.

“I have been in Desert Storm, Iraq and Afghanistan in combat. I worked on massive brain injuries, trauma, gunshot wounds, IEDs. I have seen worse cases than this and the victims recover,” McMahon told The Post.

That same month, a woman was admitted to St. Barnabas Hospital in The Bronx still showing signs of life, the suit said.

She had a kidney transplant earlier in life and network officials used that to pressure her daughter into giving consent.

“They say to her, ‘If you give us permission we will use your mother’s organs and we will help many, many people who need them,’ ” he said.

McMahon’s objections were ignored by a neurologist, who declared her brain dead — and her organs were harvested, according to the suit. McMahon even claims he tried to get a second opinion.

A month later, a man was admitted to Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn, again showing brain activity, the suit said. McMahon claims his protests were again blown off by hospital and donor-network staff, and the man was declared brain dead and his organs harvested.

In November 2011, a woman admitted to Staten Island University Hospital after a drug overdose was declared brain dead and her organs were about to be harvested when McMahon noticed that she was being given “a paralyzing anesthetic” because her body was still jerking.

When he objected, another network employee told hospital personnel McMahon was “an untrained troublemaker with a history of raising frivolous issues and questions,” the suit charged.

“I had a reputation for raising a red flag,” he said.

In order to harvest organs, the network needs a “Note” — an official declaration by a hospital that a patient is brain dead — and consent from next of kin.

The network hired marketing and sales professionals to “coach” workers to tailor their pitches based on the family’s demographics, said the suit, filed by McMahon’s lawyers Michael Borrelli, Alexander Coleman and Bennitta Joseph.

The suit said that on Nov. 4, McMahon told Helen Irving, president and CEO of the network, “one in five patients declared brain dead show signs of brain activity at the time the Note is issued.”

Irving, the suit said, replied: “This is how things are done.”

Network spokeswoman Julia Rivera said she hadn’t seen the suit, but noted that only doctors can declare a patient brain dead.

She called McMahon’s claims of a quota system “ridiculous. There are no quotas.”

A Staten Island University Hospital spokeswoman declined comment. Reps for the other three hospitals could not immediately be reached.

Additional reporting by Bob Fredericks

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For once, here is a man that is trying to do something other than kill, blow-up or torture his fellow human beings and for that rare good deed William Beale of England is noteworthy

The 5th Estate

09/29/2012

PRESS RELEASE

Going Green for Kidney Care

A new recycling initiative has been named
winner of the 2012 Green Nephrology Awards on Wednesday (26 September),
during a special summit in London.

The Green Nephrology Awards,run by the Centre for Sustainable Healthcare (CSH) in partnership with NHS Kidney Care,celebrate
the successes of local kidney services in introducing sustainable
change. Entries covered projects from procurement of lower volume
dialysis fluids to telephone follow up of patients with chronic kidney
disease.The renal dialysis unit at Newcastle upon Tyne
Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust scooped the award after increasing the
amount of plastic and cardboard waste being recycled in the Trust by 90
tonnes, resulting in cost savings of more than £7,000 per year.At the instigation of the renal department, a
cardboard baler was installed at the Freeman Hospital in March 2011,
which allowed the Renal Unit’s cardboard to be baled and recycled, and
also the cardboard from the whole of the Freeman Hospital site. In
November 2011 a smaller twin baler was also installed to crush and bale
the segregated 5L acid bottles from each renal dialysis session. The team was presented with the award and a
cheque for £500 to invest further in their green initiatives. The 2012
Awards were open to all kidney units or providers of kidney care
services in the UK, who could enter one or more local initiatives that
demonstrated a benefit to the environmental sustainability of kidney
care.The judges, Beverley Matthews, director of NHS
Kidney Care, kidney patient Chris Stait and former Green Nephrology
Fellow, Andy Connor, looked for projects which demonstrated a measurable
benefit to the environmental sustainability of kidney care, but which
also offered additional benefits such as improved patient experience or
financial savings. Further credit was given for entries that highlighted
information to assist other organisations to implement similar changes.James Dixon, waste manager at the Freeman
Hospital, who collected the award on behalf of the team said, “It was a
great surprise to find out we had won the award. The real thanks must go
to modern matron Julia Harding and consultant nephrologist Dr Alison
Brown at the Freeman as it was their idea to set up the project and
without their drive and enthusiasm we couldn’t have achieved what we
did. The prize money will go a long way to help set up similar projects
at the renal unit and hopefully go on to increase sustainability of the
unit and continue to save the NHS money.” Andy Connor said, “It's great to see that the
Green Nephrology Programme continues to inspire and support units to
deliver more sustainable healthcare. Well done to all the units who
submitted projects, and congratulations to our winner!"Chris Stait added, “The submissions of the
green nephrology awards have highlighted the great achievements of the
hospitals and renal units involved. I would encourage all dialysis units
and manufactures of dialysis equipment to follow their lead, as
millions of pounds and thousands of tons of CO2 could be saved across
the NHS and the UK.”The Green Nephrology programme will follow up in a year's time to see how the money has been used and share their experience.Notes for Editors:Images available on request.Pdf posters for 9 shortlisted award entries accessible from: http://sustainablehealthcare.org.uk/green-nephrology/resources/2012/09/green-nephrology-award-entries-2012-posters-d and http://sustainablehealthcare.org.uk/green-nephrology/resources/2012/09/green-nephrology-award-entries-2012-posters-g-nFor all media enquires please contact Dr Frances Mortimer, medical director of the Centre for Sustainable Healthcare, on +44 (0)7967 581541 or frances.mortimer@sustainablehealthcare.org.ukInformation on the Centre for Sustainable Healthcare:The Centre for Sustainable Healthcare
(formerly known as the Campaign for Greener Healthcare) is inspiring
people to realise the vital importance of the overlap between their
well being and environmental sustainability, particularly in the field of
healthcare.What is the problem?Studies show that climate change is the
biggest threat to health this century. Reports also show that the NHS is
one of the biggest carbon polluters in the UK, being responsible for 20
million tonnes of CO2 each year - representing 25% of all public sector
carbon emissions in England. It has an urgent imperative to act swiftly
to reduce this, and to promote healthy, ‘green’ practices as opposed to
being the country’s largest carbon polluter.What is the solution?The Centre for Sustainable Healthcare (CSH) is
working with key partners to engage healthcare professionals, patients
and the wider community in understanding the connections between health
and environment and the importance of adopting sustainable practices at
work and at home. As the NHS has contact with millions of people every
day as patients and employs over 1.3 million people, it has the
potential to reach huge swathes of the population with positive health
and environmental messages. The ‘convenient truth’ is that what is good
for the environment is also good for people’s health. Green Nephrology – a model for sustainable healthcareIn 2009, CSH partnered with the Renal
Association, the British Renal Society, the NHS Sustainable Development
Unit and industry partners to set up the Green Nephrology programme to
support sustainable kidney care.The Green Nephrology programme has successfully implemented:• Green Nephrology Summits (sponsored by Baxter Healthcare, NHS Kidney Care and the Association of Renal Industries)• Green Nephrology Fellowships (sponsored
by NHS Kidney Care, the Association of Renal Industries, J&J and by
private donations)• Green Nephrology network of local representatives - encompassing >80% of UK renal units.Working intensively in kidney care, the Green
Nephrology programme has demonstrated a new approach to sustainable
healthcare: creating a model of clinical transformation to inspire all
clinical specialties. Published work includes: a comparative carbon
footprint of haemodialysis provided at home vs. in-centre, as
well as a carbon footprint of a local renal service and case studies of
local green initiatives. These studies are viewed as ground breaking in
the field of sustainable healthcare and were published in peer-reviewed
medical journals, Haemodialysis International and the Quarterly Journal of Medicine.Website: http://sustainablehealthcare.org.uk/green-nephrology

Information about NHS Kidney Care:NHS Kidney Care’s objective
is to enable the provision of high quality, affordable care for all
kidney patients in England. Working alongside local kidney care
networks, we aim to develop better outcomes with all work aligned to
national priorities and supporting delivery of the national strategy. We
produce a range of resources including commissioning guidance, how-to
guides for healthcare professionals, toolkits and specifications
designed to inform local decision making and to support frontline NHS
staff to drive up quality and efficiency. All our reports and
publications can be found at www.kidneycare.nhs.uk

Thursday, September 27, 2012

Following the arrest and deportation of Kimberly Rivera for refusing to be redeployed to Iraq for a second time (Bush/Obama's back-door draft) in addition to harassment of Muslims, Canada should be avoided/boycotted until such time as they see fit to tell Obama to go to hell and reinstate a working democracy representative of a sovereign nation, cancel extradition treaty with criminal U.S. regimePRESS TV
09/26/2012

Iran's Foreign Ministry has warned Iranian citizens against traveling to Canada as the wave of Iranophobia and Islamophobia has intensified in the county.

Boycott Canada tourism, products

“According to evidence, the wave of Islamophobia and Iranophobia has not stopped but has considerably increased over the past few years and this approach has affected the country’s governmental and nongovernmental authorities,” Iran's Foreign Ministry said in a statement issued on Wednesday.

The statement added that the arrest and deportation of Iranian nationals under different pretexts continues and they are deprived of basic rights such as accessing their bank accounts or conducting financial transactions.

“The performance of Canadian police shows that the country’s government does not have sufficient resolve or capability to pursue crimes committed against Iranian residents.”

Referring to the murder of several Iranian nationals in Canada, the statement added that the Canadian police has not yet taken effective measures for apprehending murderers.

The Foreign Ministry pointed to the Canadian government's unilateral decision to close its embassy in Tehran, cautioning the Iranian nationals against “abuses and threats” they might face as the result of Ottawa’s discriminatory acts.

In a hostile move, Canada closed its embassy in Tehran on September 7 and ordered the Iranian diplomats in the country to leave its soil within five days.

The Canadian government has also frozen the bank accounts of many Iranian nationals living in the North American nation and banned money transfers to Iran.

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and do not necessarily reflect those of The 5th
Estate.

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always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such
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copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In
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Markets not the only ones that should be spooked: So should Obama, Merkel, Wall Street, "mainstream media" and the other thieves that presided over the biggest ripoff in recorded history; no such thing as ludicrous "austerity" as it is just a pleasing platitude for further looting, repeated by "mainstream media" over and over again to cover for their masters: The People will take no more and the final revolt is in progress

Markets were spooked Wednesday by scenes of violent protests on the streets of Athens and Madrid, which reignited concerns over Europe's ability to implement the measures needed to deal with its big debts.

No more fear: Protester gives corporate pigs the message

A day after U.S. stocks suffered their biggest retreat in three months on comments from a leading official at the Federal Reserve, investors have grown jittery over the future of the euro. That heaped pressure on the single currency, which fell further below $1.30, and sent oil prices back below $90 a barrel.

The latest turmoil to afflict the 17-country eurozone began late Tuesday, when clashes broke out at a demonstration in Madrid that was protesting new austerity measures from the Spanish government. That was followed Wednesday by a general strike in Greece, which also turned violent.

In Europe, Spain's IBEX index led the list of fallers, closing 3.8 percent lower at 7,867.80, while the yield on the country's 10-year bond edged up to 6 percent.

Corporate pigs on the wrong side of history

Elsewhere, Germany's DAX closed 2 percent lower at 7,276.51 while the CAC-40 in France fell 2.8 percent to 3,414.84. The FTSE 100 index of leading British shares ended 1.6 percent lower at 5,768.09.

The falls marked a sharp end to weeks of upbeat investor sentiment. Markets have been buoyant since the European Central Bank unveiled in August a plan to lower the borrowing rates of countries like Spain and Italy and prevent a breakup of the 17-country eurozone. Fresh stimulus measures from major central banks also boosted sentiment.

"Looking at the sea of red across my screens today it seems that markets have finally woken up to the fact that the eurozone is still in deep trouble and that the ECB alone cannot successfully pilot a safe course out of its economic maelstrom," said Mike Ingram, market analyst at BGC Partners.

EU is toast, thieving despots like Merkel, Hollande, Papoulias, Rajoy had better start looking for big rocks to hide under

"European politicians need to take heed from U.S. Founding Father Benjamin Franklin when he said 'We must, indeed, all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately'."

U.S. stocks also fell, with the Dow Jones industrial average down 0.1 percent at 13,450 and the broader S&P 500 index 0.4 percent lower at 1,436.

While Wall Street criminals, Obama, Clinton live in luxury, Americans eat out of trash cans - if they are lucky and can dodge corporate killer pigs that now actively hunt them as homelessness in America is criminalized: BEWARE AMERICANS, THIS COULD BE YOU

Wall Street also fell on Tuesday's, when investors were unnerved by a warning from the Fed's Charles Plosser that the central bank's efforts to support the world's biggest economy would likely fall short of its goals.

The tensions weren't just evident in stock markets — the euro was down a further 0.3 percent at $1.2854. Only last week, it was trading at multi-month highs around $1.32.

Meanwhile, the benchmark New York oil contract was $1.89 lower at $89.48 a barrel.

Any opinions expressed here are those of the author
and do not necessarily reflect those of The 5th
Estate.

This news site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not
always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such
material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental,
political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice
issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such
copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In
accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is
distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in
receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.

We have already discussed in the first part of this analysis how the American geography dooms whoever controls the territory to being a global power, but there are a number of other outcomes that shape what that power will be like. The first and most critical is the impact of that geography on the American mindset.

This e-mail outlines and confirms the acts of espionage against Indonesia and Indonesians by Akiko Makino and the others involved both in Kobe University and in AI Lab at University of Airlangga, Surabaya; Bahasa Indonesia original follows English translation...

The 5th Estate has just purchased a library on H5N1 "Novel" virus pandemics, there are dozens of PDF and Exel documents we feel will assist you in saving lives following intentional releases of the H5N1 and now MERS viruses; we will begin by printing those that appear to be extremely relevant here: H5N1 Kobe-Kawaoka-Ernala series continues soon with more "Smoking Gun" e-mails from Teridah Ernala to The 5th Estate . . .